


We've opened our eyes and it's changing the view

by Lizicia



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Snowells, it is aliiiiiiiiiive, just slight divergence tho most of it can be read within canon, missing scene for 2x23, new beginnings with some endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6967294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizicia/pseuds/Lizicia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda/insert scene for 2x23. Caitlin and Harry get a proper goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We've opened our eyes and it's changing the view

**Author's Note:**

> Snowells lives, so my writing lives again, too.  
> Title from Florence + the Machine's "How big, how blue, how beautiful".

“You did well today, Snow.”

She raises her eyes from the medical equipment she was pretending to organize and gives him a shaky smile.

“Thank you, Dr. Wells.”

He steps further into the med bay, looking back at the empty Cortex as Barry’s travelled back to Earth-2 to get to the man in the iron mask and the rest of the team are downstairs, waiting for him to return.

Everyone but Caitlin.

“We didn’t really get a chance to say this after everything that happened with Joe but…it was really brave of you, going up against Jay.”

“I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I was ready. I think I needed to face him again, even if just as a hologram.”

She meets his eyes now and quirks her head a little bit, as if pondering something. “But I am curious – you have encouraged us to do all the risky things so far, yet you would’ve been okay with me not meeting Jay? Our plan without Barry hinged on that.”

Her gaze is piercing and almost knowing so Harrison looks away and contemplates his answer, an answer he could willingly and easily give her.

There are many possibilities for what he could say but he settles on one he is least familiar with: the truth.

“When Jesse got back, she had nightmares for weeks. She would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, and saying that she saw Zoom in the corner of the room. She’d see his reflection on glass surfaces, and even Barry’s lightning would remind her of his.”

He hears her gasp and knows that nobody guessed it, nobody could tell that this was going on because Jesse was very adamant about not letting it get to her.

“I had no idea.”

He nods because of course she didn’t. “And because I saw what it did to her, I could only imagine what it did to you. And he wasn’t even trying to convince her that she was the love of his life. I didn’t want to force that on you.”

He’s watching her from the corner of his eye, so he can see the tremor which runs through her at those words, and still remembers what she looked like when she returned to STAR Labs from Jay’s captivity, shaking like a leaf but holding her head high like nothing could touch her if she just tried hard enough.

“I still see him sometimes, like flashes in the corner of my eye. And I would turn my head and he wasn’t there, of course he wasn’t. But now I really know that he will never be there again.”

“And he won’t, Snow.”

She sits down on the bed, and she looks somewhat desolate, still, but also resolute. He can understand that the worst of it is behind her, that she’s faced her fear quite literally and has seen that nothing could be redeemed with Jay, especially after he did try and kill her.

He’s almost about to leave, to let her be alone and in peace because she doesn’t seem like she wants to continue talking.

“You want to know what I thought about when Jay asked me to join him in his fight? I wasn’t making that part up; he genuinely wanted me to become a metahuman, to take on Killer Frost’s mantle and be some sort of…evil co-rulers with me together.”

He leans against the doorframe and waits, not making a sound.

“I didn’t think that he was a horrible person for thinking that I would ever consider doing it. No, what I thought was far worse.”

Caitlin takes in a deep breath, as if bracing herself and he wonders how bad could it be. Did she consider it for a second, becoming Killer Frost, succumbing to the coldness and ruthlessness of her counterpart?

He certainly doesn’t expect the next words coming out of her mouth.

“I wondered that if it had been Harrison Wells – Eobard Thawne, sorry – asking me that, I might have said yes.”

He doesn’t have a response to that but merely looks at her, shocked into silence.

“Because, and this is the real kicker, he could’ve persuaded me. I just know that if he had gotten to me at the right time, I would’ve succumbed to it because there wasn’t much I would’ve said no to.”

“But you know what he was. You knew what he’d done.”

She shrugs her shoulders slightly and sighs. “Yeah. But he knew me. I just…I don’t know why but all I could think of was his face – your face – telling me that I could be so much as Killer Frost and I would’ve believed him.”

They fall silent for a few moments and he ponders about her words, about her confession which must have come from a very vulnerable place.

“I know I come off as not caring about anything or anyone but, believe me when I say this, Snow. You’re a brilliant scientist and that was one of the first things I discovered about you, definitely after you developed Velocity-9.”

She glances at him from the corner of her eye but doesn’t say anything.

“But on top of all top, above everything else, you’re a good person. I don’t think you would’ve fallen under this Eobard Thawne’s control, no matter how much you want to give him credit. You are exceptional, Dr. Snow.”

Caitlin laughs – which comes out on a slight sob – and shakes her head. “That’s…almost exactly what he would’ve told me.”

“I’m not-“

“Him. Yes, I know, sorry. It’s been quite a day.”

“You’re a good person, Caitlin. Give yourself some credit.”

She eyes him curiously and he realizes he’s used her first name in front of her for the first time but she doesn’t say anything else.

He doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know what to exactly do with this woman in front of him, no matter how much some frisson of emotion inside of him is pushing him to be more active, to fix something, so he sits down next to her.

“I think I’ll go back to my Earth with Jesse.”

“I figured that much. How could you stay, this isn’t your home.”

“It’s not even…I don’t really have anything on that Earth. All I’ve had for years has been my Jesse and my research, and then Zoom pretty much eclipsed all the rest, and now I have nothing left. I suppose my facility is still standing but it’s so…empty.”

He offers back some of the vulnerability she’s shown him and she must understand because she leans ever so slightly against him, their shoulders touching and this little human contact from someone who’s not his daughter should not make him so thrilled but it does.

“But Jesse wants to go.”

He nods. “But Jesse wants to go, and I understand it. She has a whole life there and me…my life is Jesse.”

Caitlin hums softly under her breath and he knows that she realizes what he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud but which Jesse made clear: this Earth has become his home now, too. These people have become his friends, the kinds he never managed to keep in all his years on his Earth, especially after Tess was gone. He’d long thought he wasn’t a people person, that he didn’t really need other people the same way most did but he’s come to understand a fault in that reasoning: he just didn’t have the right people.

And now that he’s found them, he’s going to leave them behind because the thought of being separating from his daughter again, separated across universes, is too much to bear.

“It will be sad to see you go, Harry.”

She whispers it into the air between them, like a secret and he figures it must be; it’s too serious to be taken lightly but he’s never been too well-equipped to handle real emotions.

“I’d think you’d be glad you didn’t have to see Harrison Wells’ face again.”

She looks up at him, glaring slightly and he realizes that they’re very close, that there’s still the soft connection between their shoulders brushing against each other.

“Don’t be like that. We’ll all miss you and you know that.”

The air around them hums with slight tension and he knows this would be a very bad time to address that tension in any manner, shape or form.

“I expected to dislike you when we first met, because of that face. But now I think…you’re the Harrison Wells we really deserved. The man who should’ve been with us from the start, not some imposter.”

Her face is open and honest and he wonders, idly, if she ever looked at the other Harrison Wells like that, if she ever poured her heart out to him and how, if she did, he managed to be a bigger man than he’s going to be in five seconds.

Because he cannot do anything else but lean closer to her and when she meets him halfway, he knows he should’ve done this earlier, should’ve done this before Jay wormed himself into her heart because then he could’ve stopped all of the heartbreak. She kisses him like she’s been waiting for this for a long time but not like she’s thinking of some long-ago man with his face, and he’s glad he can taste the difference.

He doesn’t want it to stop, suddenly doesn’t want to face the world in which this is coming to an end, so he slides one hand into her hair and tilts her head slightly, coaxing her mouth open with his tongue, reveling in her receptiveness. There’s time to enjoy her taste, to feel the silkiness of her hair, to derive pleasure from an act so small, so beautiful, and he knows why she never let this happen before. Had they done this before, he would definitely been torn between his daughter and Caitlin now.

She lets the kiss come to a natural conclusion and lets her forehead rest against his for a moment, both of them catching their breath.

“So.”

He can almost sense that she is smiling, can hear it in her voice and he knows he is smiling because there is something warm and pleasing inside his chest now.

“I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to go back.”

She laughs, a real, honest laugh and that is something he hasn’t seen on her face a lot, so he takes it in, looks at her eyes crinkling and the slight pink on her cheeks.

“I guess we’ll have to make inter-universe travel a thing then.”

 _Yes_ , he thinks. He isn’t joking even as much as he thought he would be.


End file.
